race after that night. The mighty Beowulf kept watching how the murderous foe would set to work with his sudden snatchings. The monster was not minded to delay, but quickly grasped a sleeping warrior as a first start, rent him undisturbed, bit his bony frame, drank blood in streams, swallowed bite after bite, and soon he had eaten up all of the dead man, even his feet and hands.

Forward and nearer he advanced, and then seized with his hands the doughty warrior the fiend reached out toward him with his claw. Beowulf at once took in his evil plans, and came down on Grendel's arm. Instantly the master of crimes realized that never had he met with a mightier hand-grip in any other man. He became affrighted in soul and spirit, but he could get away no faster for all that. His mind was bent on getting off, he wished to flee into the darkness and go back to the herd of devils. His case was unlike anything he had met with in his lifetime there before. Then Hygelac's brave kinsman was mindful of his evening speech; he stood erect and grasped Grendel tight, so that his fingers cracked. The monster was moving out; Beowulf stepped forward, too. The infamous creature thought to slip farther off, wheresoever he could, and to flee away thence to his fen-refuge; he knew the power of his fingers was in the foeman's grip. That was a dire journey which the baleful fiend had made to Heorot!

The splendid hall resounded, there was panic among all the Danes, the castle-dwellers, and among the heroes and the nobles. Both the mighty wardens were furious; the building rang again. Then was it a great wonder that the wine-hall was proof against the savage fighters; that the fair earthly dwelling did not fall to the ground; yet it was made firm enough for it, inside and out, by means of iron clamps, forged with curious art. There, where the foemen fought, many a mead-bench adorned with gilding, started from the sill. The wise ones among the Danes never thought that any man could shatter it by strength or loosen it by craft, although the embrace of fire might swallow it in smoke. . . . There many a noble of Beo

wulf's company brandished an old ancestral weapon — they wished to protect the life of their lord, if so they might. They did not know, brave men of war, when they took part in the contest, and thought to hew Grendel on every side and hunt out his life, that no battle-bill on earth, no best of swords, could get at the foe, because he used enchantment against conquering weapons, every sort of blades.

Woeful was his last end to be in this life's day and his outlawed ghost was to journey far into the power of fiends. Then he who of yore had in wantonness of soul done many outrages to mankind, he, the rebel against God, discovered that his bodily frame was no help to him, but that the bold kinsman of Hygelac had him by the hands. While he lived, each was abhorrent to the other. The horrible wretch suffered deadly hurt, on his shoulder gaped a wound past remedy, the sinews sprang asunder, the fleshy covering burst. Glory in fight was granted to Beowulf; Grendel, sick unto death, must needs flee thence to the fen-fastnesses and seek out his joyless dwelling. He knew too well that the end of his life had come, the measure of his days. After that bloody contest, the desire of all the Danes had come to pass!

In such wise did he who first came from far, the wise and brave, purge Hrothgar's hall and free it from attack. He rejoiced in his night's work, in his heroic deeds. The chief of the Geatish men had made good his boast to the Danes, and removed besides all the trouble, the carking care, which erewhile they had endured, and had to undergo from dire compulsion, no small humiliation. That was clear evidence, when the brave warrior deposited by the spacious roof the hand, the arm and shoulder- there was Grendel's clutching-limb all complete!

In the morning there was many a warrior gathered round the mead hall, for chiefs of the folk came from far and near along the highways to see the marvel, the traces of the monster. His parting from life did not seem a cause for sorrow to any of the men who saw the trail of the inglorious one, how he,

weary in spirit and vanquished in the fight, made tracks for his life, death-doomed and fugitive, to the lake of the waterdemons. The water boiled with blood, the frightful surge of the waves welled up, all mingled with hot gore the deathdoomed dyed it, and then, deprived of joys, he laid life down, his heathen soul in the fen-refuge; there hell received him!

After the destruction of Grendel the monster's mother invaded the hall and carried off one of the Danish nobles. But Beowulf, nothing daunted, pursued her beneath the waves and killed her. Richly rewarded by Hrothgar, Beowulf now returned to his native land. He became king of the Geatas and ruled prosperously for fifty years. At the end of this period his country was ravaged by a fiery dragon. The aged king, with the help of a single follower, slew the dragon, but received his own death-wound.

The wound which the dragon had inflicted on him began to burn and swell; quickly he found out that deadly venom seethed within his breast.. But the chieftain went on until he sat, still clear in mind, on a seat by the rampart, and gazed on the work of giants how the primeval earth dwelling contained within it rocky arches, firm on columns. Then the thane, his follower, bathed the bloody wounds of the famous prince and undid his helmet.

Beowulf, despite his grievous wound, broke forth in speech. He knew full well that he had spent his measured while of earthly joy, then was his count of days all passed away, and death incalculably near: "Now should I have wished to give my son my armor, if it had been so ordained that any heir, belonging to my body, should come after me. I have ruled over this people fifty winters; there was not one of the neighboring kings who dared encounter me with his allies in battle or could weigh me down with fear. In my own home I awaited what the times destined for me, kept well my own, did not pick treacherous quarrels, nor have I sworn unjustly many oaths. In all this may I, sick with deadly wounds, have solace; because the Ruler of men may never charge me with the murder of kinsfolk, when my life parts from my body. . . .

"Bid ye war-veterans raise a conspicuous mound after the funeral fire, on a projection by the sea, which shall tower high as a memorial for my people, so that seafarers who urge their tall ships over the spray of ocean shall thereafter call it Beowulf's mound."

The brave-souled prince then undid from his neck the golden collar, gave it to the thane, the young warrior, and his goldmounted helmet, ring and corselet, and bade him use them well. "Thou art the last of our race," he said. "Fate has swept all my kinsfolk off, undaunted nobles, to their doom. I must go after them." That was the last thought of the old king's heart before the funeral fire was his lot, the hot destructive flames. His soul departed from his body to find the reward of righteous men."

The story on which the Nibelungenlied is based was widespread among Teutonic peoples. It is touched upon in Beowulf and is fully developed in the Prose Edda, one of the most important literary productions of the Northmen. In the German form of the legend the song of the Nibelungs becomes a story of the love and vengeance of the beautiful Kriemhild, daughter of a Burgundian king.

There grew up in Burgundy a noble maiden, in no land was a fairer. Kriemhild was her name. Well favored was the damsel, and by reason of her died many warriors. Doughty knights in plenty wooed her, for she was exceeding comely, and her virtues were an adornment to all women.

Now it so happened that Kriemhild, the pure maid, dreamed that she trained a wild falcon, and eagles wrested it from her; the which to see grieved her more than any ill that had befallen her heretofore.

This dream she told to Uta, her mother, who interpreted it in this manner: “The falcon that thou sawest is a noble man; yet if God keep him not, he is a lost man to thee."

"What speakest thou to me of men, mother mine? Without

1 Nibelungenlied, vv. 13-19, 86-100, 291-305, 916-925, 972-1001.

their love would I still abide, that I may remain fair till my death, nor suffer harm from any man's love."

Said her mother then, "Be not so sure; for wouldst thou ever on this earth have heart's gladness, it cometh from the love of a man. And a fair wife wilt thou be, if God but lead hither to thee a true and trusty knight."

"Say not so, mother mine," answered the maiden, "for to many a woman, and oft hath it been proven, the reward of love is sorrow. From both I will keep me, that evil betide not."

Long in such wise abode the high, pure maiden, nor thought to love any. Nevertheless, at the last, she wedded a brave man; that was the falcon she dreamed of erstwhile, as her mother foretold it. Yea, bitter was her vengeance on her kinsmen that slew him, and by reason of his death died many a mother's son.

The famous Siegfried, attracted by the fame of Kriemhild's beauty, came to Worms, the Burgundian capital. Kriemhild's brothers observed the arrival of Siegfried and his knights, and from their retainer, Hagen, learned who the hero was.

"From wheresoever they have come, they must be princes, or the envoys of princes. Their horses are good, and wondrously rich their vesture. . . . But for this I vouch, that, though I never saw Siegfried, yonder knight who goeth so proud is none but he. New adventures he bringeth hither. By this hero's hand fell the brave Nibelungs, Schilbung and Nibelung, the high princes. Wonders hath he wrought by his prowess. I have heard tell that, on a day when he rode alone, he came to a mountain and chanced on a company of brave men who guarded the Nibelung's hoard, whereof he knew naught. The Nibelung men had just brought it forth from a hole in the hill and, oddly enough, they were about to share it. Siegfried saw them and marveled thereat. He drew so close that they were aware of him, and he of them. Whereupon one said, 'Here cometh Siegfried, the hero of the Netherland!' Schilbung and Nibelung welcomed him, and with one accord the